Sweet!

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Ala Nose

Of course, some aspects of the future run counter to what we could reasonably have expected.

Nearly everyone has a computer now, and that (as has been noted) is science fictiony enough in itself. So nearly everyone has this wonderful processing power at their fingertips.

Yet internet discussions (other than BAUT and a few others) seems to consist mainly of people expressing ill-informed opinions, or abusing people with a different viewpoint.

Moon Hoax Believers could be calculating how much fuel is needed, what speed the capsules pass through the Van Allen belts, what dose of radiation they would receive, and so on. ATMers could enrol on online maths courses, and use commercially available modelling software to see if their theories hold water - never again would we hear, "I don't know the maths, but..."

So why isn't it happening? (Rhetorical question.)

Paul, I think what you have done is prove that technology doesn't change human nature. Who knew?

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Rhetorical question, Gillian?

Well, yes. It was merely an observation.

ETA--It was also assuredly not intended as a slight against you. More against . . . well, Gene Roddenberry, I guess!

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Don't worry, I didn't read it as one. I'd have put an emoticon afterwards, but couldn't find a specifically "dry, deadpan" smiley!

You think Roddenbery believed technology DOES change human nature?

I disagree -- I think Gene Roddenberry (also Arthur C. Clarke) had far too idealistic view of what human nature already is, and believed that technology simply allows all good things to come to the forth.

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Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.

In my way of thinking, it's not a substantial enough difference of concept. The fact is, technology is never going to make us perfect, either by its own devices or by whatever magic Roddenberry was suggesting. There will always be conflict; technology just changes, somewhat, what there's conflict about--and how it's resolved.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Computers are simply a communications device, and makes ******y more effective for the juvenile minded or spreading science chatter for the so inclined. Computers have no control (yet) over who said what at their keyboards. They just send the data faster.

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Ala Nose

Clarke's "Imperial Earth", while old-fashioned in many ways, is probably still one of the most liberal things I've read in this regard. Sexual orientation as a concept isn't even mentioned much - all we have is the main character moping that a woman he fancied ran off with his male best friend and lover. And we only learn that he's black halfway through the book.

Technologically, SD cards (flash memory) just scream sci-fi at me. No tape, no disc, no moving parts at all. They're the very essence of data slivers.

And on a very slightly different note, I think the IPhone has pretty much crossed the border into "indistinguishable from magic". Not so much its function as phone, portable games console, music player - that's "just" science fiction. But the way the icons appear on the screen, and can be moved round with your fingers, is just a step away from a wizard gesturing instructions to a magic mirror.

Being able to find out from your computer when a permanently crewed space station will be flying over your house.

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I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

Being able to follow a news story as it develops in real time by refreshing a web page, sometimes every five minutes if it is an unusually fast developing story. Another way to follow in real time news are tools such as Google's Swine Flu web map. There's no need to wait 24 hours for the daily paper.

There are risks. Total immersion in the often negative news can cause emotional downswings. You also have to be certain to seek out balance in your information sources. There are good sources of information, but there are plenty of Woo Woos telling us that Aliens are lurking under the man hole covers...

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Ala Nose

I have a chip measuring less than 10x15x1mm storing 8 gigabytes (68,719,476,736 bits) on a 5x8mm section and it cost practically nothing.

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You can't really tell the difference between drunken rambling and sober blogging.

The number of "levels of abstraction" in technology becomes biological (not astronomical--not so much big as complicated) in size. No one person is an expert in all levels, and many work only at just one level, taking all the lower levels as "given".

(not so simple) example: a hypothetical piece of artificial intelligence software is entirely information, no physical substance, that is built from subroutines, each of which performs functions as complex as what was once considered a computer program, but are simple compared to "AI".

The subroutines are written in some high-level human-readable computer language (maybe C or C++) with an associated "platform" so you don't re-invent the wheel for everything (such as printf--to display text on the screen).

The complier rewrites the human-readable code as assembly (may be steps in between: parse tree that a computer can interpret easily, a register transfer language that is more portable than assembly, and finally assembly, which was how we programmed before high-level languages were improved on enough). The assembler turns it into numbers, which is really the only thing a computer can run.

The CPU takes the numbers, and (in modern CPUs, at least), "decodes" them to call microcode routines (what we call microcode today would have been the main language of a computer decades ago). and these are executed by transistors...no, not quite, still some more levels to go through!

They are executed by blocks on a chip, such as the ALU (arithmetic-logic unit) block, memory control, etc. Then, the blocks were built (designed using some language like Verilog) out of flip flops, gates, "wires" (that are really paths in silicon). Each gate, flip flop, etc, has been designed and optimized in RTL (resistor-transistor logic)--but there is still something missing! even when IBM, say, gets the verilog specs, they don't just convert to RTL and build it--there's "floor planning" (putting the transistors, etc. in an optimal order on the chip(s) so data doesn't travel so far, since it "only" goes the speed of light) and though automated mostly, may need to be tweaked by hand (emergent issues occur--"parasitic capacitance" between so-called "wires" too close together causing data slowdowns, etc.) and extra resistors put in here and there to get the voltage right, extra capacitors here and there to make sure a flip flop gets power quickly when it needs it, the power supply being a good 15 inches away, and so on.

Then, this is built physically on an integrated circuit chip--that is a whole new can of worms (I told you it was biological!) , a technology well-developed with tons of innovations making them what they are today. A tiny, submicron area of the chip would be a single transistor or resistor or capacitor, etc. Now it is starting to look like chemistry and/or quantum mechanics--silicon with impurities added, just the right amount, to make it behave like the required electronic component. Note--many chips are thrown away as useless--even today, the process is not absolutely perfect. It used to be, you throw away 9 out of every 10 chips you make. Today, it's closer to 1 out of 20 or 40 or so, depending on the complexity of the chip.

The component works via effects (many discovered in the quantum-mechanical research of Bardeen, Shockley, and, you know, the third tenor..er...scientist). These are essentially "solid state radio tubes", since they were invented to be a better, faster, cheaper version of "radio tubes" (invented by De Forest, almost invented by Edison but he didn't see the significance). (and I haven't even mentioned all the manufacturing involved--glass, silicon, wires, etc, don't grow on trees--they grow in factories).

Ok--it's not truly biological as we *can* follow the zillions of threads backward in abstraction from the AI software, at least in principle, but it's getting close. As machines help design machines (remember, parts of chip design are automated, translation to lower level languages is automated, but also we have IDEs--integrated development environments, like NetBeans--and editors (e.g. xemacs) that automate parts of code writing, mostly the grunt work, but more and more as one goes on--someday...., and we do have special-purpose tools, e.g. lex and yacc, that write C code based on (much shorter) specifications about what it should do).

Thus, the programmer doesn't know what his lowest level code is doing because another program wrote it. He doesn't know what the hardware does with the code, because that's the engineer's problem. And so on.

If this goes on....someday we will have a Library-Of-Alexandria-ish problem, but perhaps in the milder form, where we forget how to do the lowest levels, but take the highest levels of abstraction of a technology as "given". Chips? well, this machine over there puts them out. Nobody knows how it does it or how these chips work. THAT is the future.

But my point is, 90% of it is already here, and that seems very science fictiony (sipled milk, anyone?).

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

When with a few clicks and some typing, I am able to find out that NASA.gov is the 437th most visited site by Internet users in the United States!

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I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

Heh. Speaking of science fiction, imagine parsing that statement pre-internet. A person would probably realize that it was talking about something involving NASA, and traffic on a network, but they wouldn't know the underlying context, or what you were clicking.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Well...

Heinlein's "Mike" computer, of Luna origen, became self-aware during one of his short stories. He wrote it in the 1950s, if I'm not mistaken. Among Heinlein's narratives were Mike simulating both voice and videophone conversations of many others.

No 3d simulations, per se', though...

Imagine a kid with the name 'Google'?

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Ala Nose

following up on that I checked out cnn.



Cnn.com is the 15th most hit site in the US. But look at January and November!!!

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"I will do my best to understand and explain the universe from big to small without invoking miracles, unrepeatable events, or divine intervention. In place of those things I will use observations, mathematics, and science."


-Cross
My travel blog

Some of my Astrophotography


Those that lack education have a hard time understanding its value. - Cross

actually, there's a lot of information on that chart. you can see the periodic (work week) highs and weekend lows. Holidays like Christmas and new Years are slow, and then of course there's the almost complete evenness throughout the rest of the time. The same people do the same surfing every day.

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"I will do my best to understand and explain the universe from big to small without invoking miracles, unrepeatable events, or divine intervention. In place of those things I will use observations, mathematics, and science."


-Cross
My travel blog

Some of my Astrophotography


Those that lack education have a hard time understanding its value. - Cross

and google.com is numero uno in the world with approx 30% of all internet traffic.

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"I will do my best to understand and explain the universe from big to small without invoking miracles, unrepeatable events, or divine intervention. In place of those things I will use observations, mathematics, and science."


-Cross
My travel blog

Some of my Astrophotography


Those that lack education have a hard time understanding its value. - Cross

face book is taking over

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"I will do my best to understand and explain the universe from big to small without invoking miracles, unrepeatable events, or divine intervention. In place of those things I will use observations, mathematics, and science."


-Cross
My travel blog

Some of my Astrophotography


Those that lack education have a hard time understanding its value. - Cross

oddly google.fr has the same periodicity but the amplitude between peak and low is not as pronounced

__________________
"I will do my best to understand and explain the universe from big to small without invoking miracles, unrepeatable events, or divine intervention. In place of those things I will use observations, mathematics, and science."


-Cross
My travel blog

Some of my Astrophotography


Those that lack education have a hard time understanding its value. - Cross

and then there's twitter

__________________
"I will do my best to understand and explain the universe from big to small without invoking miracles, unrepeatable events, or divine intervention. In place of those things I will use observations, mathematics, and science."


-Cross
My travel blog

Some of my Astrophotography


Those that lack education have a hard time understanding its value. - Cross

Must be from the election and inauguration.

And pre-1958, they'd have said "You spelled NACA wrong!"

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I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

I would have thought 'Google' was two words....
Go / Ogle

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clear skies

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. CARL SAGAN

Mak: Pass the pepperoni please.
Fazor: "Hail, Bautainia! We pledge our hearts to thee! Science and woo, some babbling too, and astron-oh-meee!"
slang: And it made ash out of yew and tree.

Hmmm... Well, I must admit that using my tablet/convertible PC has a sort of Sci-Fi feel to it, I can move stuff with my finger or use a wacom digitizer pen to draw or write. I can have tousands of books or hundreds of high resolution pictures on a piece of plastic the size of a stamp.

I can download audio versions of old sci-fi books from Librivox and listen to them on my MP3 player. It can store enough audio for many workdays, and only needs a AAA battery, and could be used as an audio recorder if I ever needed one.

There are websites where I can see videos made by people anywhere in the world, and everytime something happens, there is always somebody around to record it. I can listen to music that was not played by a human, and songs no human sang, and these nonexistant singers have even been given names.

I can buy something on the web, pay it on the web, and get the package delivered at my door.

If I do not know where somewere is, i can just go online and get a map that shows me. If I need to figure out what busses to take to get somewere, I can just go to a website, enter where I am, where I want to go, and when i want to go and I get a list of the possible choices for getting there.

I am not sure if one can call it Sci-Fi futuristic, but around here it has become popular for supermarkets and companies to build new structures that basicaly is a steel skeleton with walls made from two metal sheets with insulation sandwiched between them. Anyway, the point is that it is surprising how fast one of these things can be built.

I can put some food on a plate in the microwave and some minutes later, it is sizzling hot, and still I can take out the plate without burning by hand...

Well, there are probably an endless amount of other things that could be mentioned, but this post is getting to be rather long now...

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Game over, you lose, we hope you enjoyed playing the exciting game of Thermodynamics...

When the digital avatars of my two brothers can play a duet together in a completely fictional Middle-Ages world just by typing a few keys on their keyboards.

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I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

And the two big spikes are near the times of the American elections and the Presidential inauguration.

...when humans are warming up their planet. Back when only puppeteers did stuff like that.

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If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.